#Neil Bartram

[areyoubea-why]

Some bits from an animation I’m making

But I might have just spoiled it completely… idk leave me alone

[lemonwisp]

I JUST WOKE UP AND HAD AN AMAZING IDEA

okay imagine for like the NATM musical Jed and Oct had a song like The End of The Line (by Neil Bartram) from The Theory of Relativity

Like for natm 3 they are meeting Tilly and their introduction would be like:

I’m Octavius, I’m Jedediah

He’s Jed, He’s Oct

Our life at

The museum

Totally rocks

Started as rivals

but now we are friends

Totally platonic

Which makes this next bit quite ironic

Jed’s like my husband

And Oct is like mine

Alive to the end of the night (or we come alive every night)

Had nothing much in common

Loves horses

Loves swords

But we were attached at the hip

Jed’s so intriguing, so wild and brash

Oct is a nerd and a drip

And so on

There would definitely be a bit like “Jed is so chaotic, his blue eyes are hypnotic” or

“Jed’s blue eyes are hypnotic” “Oct’s skirt is so erot1c”

Cause they definitely aren’t platonic

[writemarcus]

The Rise and Fall of ‘KPOP’

Why is this groundbreaking Broadway musical closing so soon? The tale of its creation, evolution, marketing, and critical reception offers plenty of clues—and some glimmers of hope.

BY MARCUS SCOTT

KPOP will play its final Broadway performance this Sunday, Dec. 11, after 44 previews and 17 performances (during previews, the show canceled multiple matinee performances and one of the leads got COVID, prompting producers to move its official opening night to Nov. 27, one week after its initial opening celebration). This makes this historic musical the shortest-running Broadway musical since Neil Bartram’s The Story of My Life shuttered after 19 performances in 2009.

Cancellations and delays have become commonplace as Broadway rebounds from a pandemic and a global quarantine that affected all live gatherings, but theatre in particular. The closure and slow return has had a major impact on Broadway, with 2021-22 revenue and attendance taking major hits, falling from the historic record of $1.829 billion set by the 2018-19 season to the total of $845.4 million last season. These statistics by the Broadway League indicate a plunge of 54 percent, marking a drop in audience attendance, which saw a record high of 14.7 million in 2019 but fell to 6.72 million this past year. Shows like the long-running Phantom of the Opera and A Strange Loop—an artistic triumph which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and earned the Tony Award for Best musical at this year’s ceremony—will end their respective runs on Broadway early next year. Even Stomp, the Off-Broadway percussion-and-movement mainstay, is set to end its 29-year run at the Orpheum Theatre next month.

One might surmise that KPOP, a pop musical penned and composed by three hip yet largely unknown theatre artists, was in part a casualty of some of these seismic forces. But the story isn’t that simple. Like many shows, it faced delays and cancellations due to COVID, but ticket sales were markedly anemic throughout the show’s preview period, leading many to point fingers at the show’s faulty marketing efforts to attract younger audiences and fans of the increasingly popular Korean music genre that gives the show its title.

And then there was the question of the show’s critical reception, which was decidedly mixed. Most reviews weren’t positive, with at least one major exception (Variety posted a rave), but it didn’t help that The New York Times’s Jesse Green had nothing nice to say about the show, comparing it unfavorably to KPOP’s 2017 Off-Broadway staging and writing that “those who aren’t hard-core fans of the genre or don’t understand Korean” would probably not enjoy the show (a bizarre appraisal, considering the show is performed primarily in English, with occasional Korean lyrics and dialogue, and with its Playbill making history as the first to be bilingual). Green also received criticism for referring to Jiyoun Chang’s million-dollar kilowatt lighting designs as “squint-inducing,” an unfortunate word choice that led many to perceive his review as racist, even if unwittingly so; producers and cast members went so far as to ask Green and the Times for an apology, though none was forthcoming.

Naturally, when news broke that the show would end its run just two weeks after its official opening, the theatre community went into an uproar about what went wrong with a show that so many—and not just those involved in its making— thought deserved a better chance to find an audience.

“Globally, this is a case of how the status quo of Broadway marketing (run by predominantly white people) fails to lift up projects attempting to bring new diverse audiences to Broadway,” wrote associate director Seonjae Kim via e-mail.

How did KPOP arrive at this crossroads? Just before Thanksgiving and the show’s postponed opening night, I spoke with members of the creative team. The behind-the-scenes story of this groundbreaking musical is a tale of intense collaboration, evolving perceptions and intentions, and a lot of creative tinkering. Just as KPOP deserved a longer run, this story ought to be told.

Blast Off

On a mid-November afternoon, when I finally got in touch with composer Helen Park, she was holed up in the lower lobby of the Circle in the Square Theatre between rehearsals, surrounded by a wall of placards and production photos taken at the venue over its celebrated 50-year history. Connecting over FaceTime, our initial hellos were a bit klutzy. It’s not every day you’re tasked with interviewing a friend, after all: Park and I both attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, where we enrolled into the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program in 2011. There we spent two years finessing our craft, fidgeting with our skill sets, and finding our voices. Similar to my own experience, Park faced and fought the stereotypes and preconceptions of patronizing elders in the musical theatre field. She’s a global citizen woman of color who writes radio-friendly ditties with an effervescent pop sheen, in the face of a post-Sondheim white cis-het male-dominated industry; I’m a lower-middle-class Black poet and journalist-turned-librettist-songwriter who had more in common with the security guards manning the entrances than the trustafarian hipsters and preppies who frequented the campus.

Park handled it all like a boss, probably because she has a knack for proving others wrong. At the age of 5 in Busan, Korea, she began playing classical piano, learning Schubert, Chopin, and Rachmaninoff. At age 9, her father’s studies brought her to Missouri for two years, where she played state-level competitions. In sixth grade, she attended a musical theatre summer school in Virginia, cementing her love of the craft with a production of Mary Rodgers’s musical comedy Once Upon a Mattress. After attending middle school back in her native Korea, she convinced her parents to send her more than 7,000 miles away to a Christian conservative boarding school in Alberta, Canada, where she would spend her high school years listening to ’90s and early-2000s Korean pop ballads as a source of comfort and connection. After a stint studying life sciences, she moved to the Big Apple, where she befriended co-lyricist and co-composer Max Vernon.

Vernon and Park’s collaborations began in graduate school, when a joint assignment led to The Lament of Asian Girl #3, a satirical romp about stereotypes and casual racism in the film and theatre industries. Park told me she really responded to Vernon’s lyrical style, describing it as edgy, fresh, and singular. In 2014, Park was approached by Vernon, who was already in talks with Ars Nova about developing a musical about K-pop; Vernon introduced her to director Teddy Bergman of Woodshed Collective, as well as co-conceiver and librettist Jason Kim. She then partook in a sort of bake-off developmental workshop, alongside AAPI storyteller A. Rey Pamatmat, playwright Jeremy Lloyd, and the songwriting team of Maggie-Kate Coleman and Erato A. Kremmyda.

“We were experimenting with having many different composers write this score,” said Park, who music-directed and contributed two songs to that initial workshop. “But we all felt there needed to be cohesiveness to the score, because they were all so different from each other. So Max and I became a team from there.”

Bergman described the origin of KPOP as an “arranged marriage” orchestrated by Ars Nova, with artistic director Jason Eagan and former associate artistic director Emily Shooltz bringing together a team to explore an immersive show set in the K-pop universe. Little did he know that Kim and Vernon, members of Ars Nova’s Uncharted program, had already been ruminating on the same subject. After a successful series of workshops in 2016, Ars Nova greenlit the musical for a limited engagement.

Meant 2 Be

For those who saw the 2017 production, including many critics, the new Broadway version of KPOP feels more like a reinvention than a reboot—a spiritual successor from an alternative timeline or fictional metaverse, if you will. Performed in the expansive A.R.T./New York Theatres space, the Off-Broadway production divided audience members into groups who were given a tour of JTM Entertainment, a fictional K-pop music factory owned by South Korean power couple Moon (played by James Saito) and his wife Ruby (Vanessa Kai), hoping to break into the North American market with their brand of infectious pop. Tapping the San Diego-born Korean American agent Jerry (James Seol), they strategized to tip the scales in their favor, plotting world domination with their contagious confection of earworms.

Theatregoers who toured the multilevel, multiroom facility were then introduced to the five-member boy band F8, the six-singer girl group Special K, and Seoul’s reigning glitterball prima donna, MwE (Ashley Park, in a star turn before her Tony-nominated performance as Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls). They also met the company’s toxic in-house plastic surgeon Dr. Park (David Shih), ferociously vicious vocal coach Yazmeen (Amanda Morton), and ruthless dance instructor Jenn (Ebony Williams, last seen as a backup dancer on Beyonce’s Formation tour and best remembered for the “Single Ladies” music video).

Onlookers observed as the JTM artists were put through the wringer: Required to participate in mandatory rehearsals to flawlessly execute physically demanding vocal and dance exercises, they were also expected to workshop and generate new recorded material around the clock, to cultivate their fickle fandom via social media, to receive media training, and to confront their body dysmorphia via a rhinoplasty examination for any facial imperfections. And this summary barely scratches the surface of a show that also addressed themes of xenophobia, racism, and child labor.

Audiences, and most critics, relished the soap opera-esque storytelling, with larger-than-life Asian performers playing multi-dimensional protagonists rather than sidekicks or tertiary tropes. That iteration of KPOP would go on to become the most nominated show of the 2017-18 theatrical season, taking home the Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical, a Richard Rodgers Award, and an Off-Broadway Alliance Award for Unique Theatrical Experience, while earning multiple nominations for both the Drama Desk Awards and Drama League Awards.

Even before the show received these plaudits, a Broadway transfer seemed imminent, with lines trailing down city blocks and theatregoers cosplaying as characters from the show. Yet no one could predict the trajectory of pop culture, or of Broadway, within the demi-decade to come, and that’s where things get tricky.

Super Star

Five years later, there’s no denying that K-pop has found a home in the land of Stars and Stripes. Just ask the legions of superfans backing radio leviathans like Blackpink (the highest-charting K-pop girl group on the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200), Seventeen (the first K-pop group to be nominated and win the MTV Push Performance of the Year), Girls’ Generation (recent Guinness World Records holders), SuperM (the first Asian artists to top the chart with a debut release) and BTS (the first act to have six consecutive No. 1 singles on the Hot 100 in the shortest amount of time since The Beatles), to name a few. While there has yet to be a singular crossover superstar equivalent to the likes of Lizzo, Billie Eilish, Anitta, Doja Cat, or Olivia Rodrigo, it is only a matter of time before K-Pop produces its own international superstar. Blackpink’s Lisa, who was recently honored at the 2022 Video Music Awards for Best K-Pop for her solo single “Lalisa,” could be a contender.

KPOP director Teddy Bergman recalled a sold-out BTS concert at MetLife Stadium in 2019, marveling at “the umbrella of who was in that crowd, not only AAPI audience members, but just a wildly diverse audience base there, singing along to songs in Korean.” Bergman, the son of first-generation German Jewish refugees, added, “Seeing that radical expansion brings up questions of, when the tent of your music gets so large, what piece are you holding onto? Like, is there a question of the dilution of the form as you’re spreading it further and further and you’re reaching a wider audience?”

Among other things, such rapid development in the cultural milieu meant that the writers would have to update their references. Vernon said that when the show was initially conceived, the creative team was influenced by an earlier generation of K-pop stars: Wonder Girls, Girls’ Generation, SHINee, 2NE1, Big Bang, Exo, Psy. By the time the show was headed to Broadway, the songwriting team had turned their ears to a new generation: BTS, Blackpink, NCT 127, Seventeen, New Jeans, Monsta X, and Vernon’s personal favorite, Lee Tae-min of Shinee and the supergroup SuperM. For her part, Park name-checked inspirations as wide-ranging as You Hee-yeol of the one-man band Toy, R&B music icon Stevie Wonder, global music megastar Michael Jackson, jazz, and ’90s sentimental pop ballads.

Changing perceptions of K-pop would also demand a different focus for the show: The burning question for the KPOP characters this time around wouldn’t be whether these acts would go mainstream, but rather what they would be forced to sacrifice in that crossover: their identity, as they assimilate into the global market, or their autonomy and individuality as they reach the upper echelons of fame?

The other big challenges of the Broadway transfer were scale and form: Not only were none of the 41 Broadway theatres equipped to present an immersive experience of the kind the previous KPOP had, but, as book writer Jason Kim wrote in an email, the original script “was over 500 pages. We had to include so much content to fill every corner of every room in the building. Cutting out parts of the story happened by necessity, but we also embraced it as an opportunity to distill the story down to its most essential points.”

The result that’s currently at Broadway’s intimate Circle in the Square features an 18-member cast and four swings, including real-life K-pop idols Kevin Woo (of boy band U-KISS), Min-Young Lee (of girl group Miss A), and Bohyung Kim (of girl group Spica and music duo Keembo), not to mention Korean multimedia singer-star Luna. Audiences are on hand to observe rehearsals for a one-night-only concert affair to be presented by a K-pop corporation called RBY Entertainment, which is looking to introduce their roster to America. K-pop impresario and momager Ruby (an attention-grabbing Jully Lee) is hedging her bets with three of them: the newly formed RTMIS (pronounced Artemis), the riveting F8 (pronounced fate), and her muse and prima donna of the dancefloor MwE (pronounced mu-wee), an orphan Ruby has personally raised for fame. The show’s form now resembles a combination of early-aughts VH1-style Behind the Music docudrama and memory play, telling the story of MwE’s road to superstardom through flashbacks and snapshots of her life, from her initial audition as a wide-eyed tween with big dreams and impressive pipes through the elaborate, Vox Lux-esque stage performances of her first world tour.

The new version of KPOP is in fact mostly focused on MwE and her struggles for independence, artistic freedom, individuality, work-life balance, and childhood trauma. While stage time in the 2017 production was evenly distributed, the stories of the other bands have been significantly if necessarily streamlined: Special K has been whittled down to the five-member RTMIS, though F8 has expanded from five to eight members. (And gone is MwE’s supposed younger shadow self, waiting in the wings to dethrone her.) Instead the new script introduces Juny, MwE’s guitar-plucking, golden-voiced boyfriend, who is intent on rescuing her from her gilded cage (played by a delightful Jinwoo Jung, seen in KPOP Off-Broadway as F8 member Oracle). Recording the spectacle is fame-hungry documentary filmmaker Harry (played by Aubie Merrylees, in a thankless part), who wants to turn the concert and its behind-the-scenes drama into a vehicle that will land him recognition and awards on the festival circuit.

On paper, this all sounds fine. But when one makes comparisons to that edgy original Off-Broadway production, the trials and tribulations faced by the RBY artists in the Broadway production come across as champagne problems. In the original production, the F8 segment focused on the cultural divide between South Korea and the U.S.; the Special K segment focused on the intersection of racism and sexism with regard to the unrealistic expectations of perfection; and the MwE segment interrogated the commodification of child stars. On Broadway, only the latter concern is truly explored in depth, while the challenges facing F8 are merely glimpsed and the RTMIS story is virtually non-existent.

There’s also the difference between Jerry and Harry. In the 2017 script, Jerry was a Korean American who had bought into respectability politics and the model minority myth, and was enforcing assimilation and cultural agility on the talent under his care. Jerry wasn’t a simple villain, as at the climax he realized his error and faced his internalized racism. But in the new script, Harry is little more than a stand-in for the exploitative, imperalist white gaze, demanding that the biracial, people-pleasing Brad (Zachary Noah Piser) translate what the other boy band members are saying in Korean in return for a stronger spotlight in the documentary.

Songwriter Vernon explained these choices in part as a result of the sea change in K-pop’s popularity.

“When we started writing almost nine years ago, it was about whether or not K-pop could transfer and cross over to an American pop market, and we were asking ourselves questions of what would the sacrifices those artists would have to make in terms of their own personal and cultural identity to appeal to American audiences,” Vernon told me during a break from rehearsal for their show The Tattooed Lady, which ran just before KPOP‘s opening at the Philadelphia Theatre Company. “I think one of our main assumptions was that there would have to be a much greater cultural sacrifice, so we had this character of Jerry, this American consultant who was encouraging the K-pop artist to do things that were in many ways harmful to who they were, hiding who they were in order to appeal to America. At the end of the show, the realization was that actually the best way to appeal to America is just that the K-pop artists be fully themselves; they don’t need to cross over to us, we need to cross over to them. In 2017, that was a really powerful message, but since we did the show, K-pop has crossed over.”

Added Park, “Through the pandemic, there was this reckoning. Asian Americans and people of color started grappling with their own identity; it was so important to us to honor as much authenticity as we can for K-pop and Korean pop culture, so our focus kind of shifted, which meant the story had to change. Instead of asking, why hasn’t K-pop crossed over into the U.S., we started to go into what is the experience of being a K-pop star? What is the joy and exhilaration, but also the sacrifice?”

Still, without the animating drama of crossover, audiences for the new KPOP—both K-pop diehards and the uninitiated—may be confused about what they are supposed to take away from the show. Here’s where the critiques of Jesse Green and others, however pointed or problematic, aren’t totally unfounded. By making such changes, one could argue that the KPOP team turned one of the most singular, innovative, and genre-bending triptych theatrical productions of the last 25 years into one of the most traditional, bare-bones, and sanitized productions of the post-pandemic era. Instead of showing the rot beneath the sparkling ruby, this version of KPOP only covers it up with more precious gems; the sharp, subversive edges of the original were dulled and smoothed down or completely obscured, and the darker extremities explored in 2017 trimmed away.

I think the creative team made the incorrect assumption that because K-pop has exploded in the U.S., Americans are likewise familiar with South Korean customs and culture, which couldn’t be further from the truth. You would never guess from KPOP that South Korea has one of the highest suicide rates among OECD member nations, with a 2016 study finding that 30 percent of South Koreans suffer from mental illness, though only half seek treatment. Or that in the last five years, there have been a string of notable suicides in the Seoul music industry, including songwriter-producer Kim Jonghyun of Shinee, barrier-breaking industry rebel Sulli of f(x), and actress-singer Goo Hara of Kara. Imagine the power of a script in which the animosity between F8 members and hapa newcomer Brad arose in part because the band member he replaced had committed an act of self-harm instead of simply being mysteriously fired. Or, given K-pop’s trend of queer-baiting, its litany of “skinship” performances from acts like NU’EST, VIXX and OnlyOneOf, having an openly queer member of F8 would have certainly added nuance. Imagine what that could have done for songs like “Han Guk Nom (Korean Man)” and conversations around Asian masculinity in South Korea’s often conservative Christian society. (John Yi’s commanding, laugh-out-loud performance as F8’s smoldering Danny, for example, would be an obvious choice for this storyline.) This would not only have honored the queer artists who have penned some of the genre’s biggest hits, but the LGBTQIA+ artists who penned KPOP itself.

All of this is not to say that the new KPOP didn’t make improvements. Park Sun-young, known internationally as Luna, gives a nuanced performed as MwE, and the fact that Luna’s own career trajectory bears striking similarities to MwE’s adds a layer of meta-authenticity that wasn’t a part of the 2017 Off-Broadway run. Following a 2006 appearance on the Seoul Broadcasting System reality TV show Truth Game, Luna was scouted by the powerhouse label SM Entertainment prior to making her debut as the main vocalist and lead dancer of South Korean hipster girl group f(x), alongside Victoria, Amber, Krystal, and Sulli in 2009. The quintet earned critical and commercial success domestically and internationally, becoming the first K-pop act to perform at SXSW. And with her role in KPOP, Luna is the first K-pop idol to have a leading role on Broadway.

That’s not the only historic first marked by KPOP: It’s also the first Korean-centric musical with Korean, Korean American, and AAPI representation (on- and offstage) to grace the Great White Way, and only the third Broadway musical to highlight Asian American heritage with Asian Americans in both the cast and the creative team. Helen Park makes history as the first Asian American woman composer of a Broadway musical, and only the sixth Asian composer ever. And Luna isn’t the only one making her Broadway debut; so is almost the entire cast (Zachary Noah Piser, Eddy Lee, Major Curda, and Aubie Merrylees are the exceptions). That places a lot of undue pressure on a show like this, leaving little room for error—ironic for a show about artists striving for perfection.

Phoenix

So why is the show closing? A sentiment shared among industry observers and theatregoers is that the marketing team backing KPOP just didn’t make enough of an effort to target contemporary enthusiasts of the K-pop genre. The producers seem to have hoped those fans would be attracted by the K-pop recording stars in the cast, but there’s a fallacy in this logic: The idol industry cycles through performers cursorily, so that there’s not enough collective memory for that to translate to tickets sales or merchandise (another theme and plot point in the original Off-Broadway production that is all but absent this time around).

“There are a myriad of complicated reasons why KPOP is closing its doors prematurely,” wrote associate director Seonjae Kim in an email. “But in my opinion, a big one is the marketing and outreach. Our social media endeavors were essentially non-existent until it was way too late in the game to build buzz. Many posts were low-effort and failed to utilize even the most basic of algorithm principles (like using hashtags). There are many accounts of cast and team members reaching out with impressive personal connections and promotional opportunities that went unanswered. In my opinion, there was zero strategy and innovation on how to market this incredibly non-traditional show to non-traditional audiences.

She continued, “Amidst the sadness, it’s been a real pleasure to see to see that our houses do not look like a typical Broadway-going audience: so many young folks, AAPI folks, folks carrying signs for their favorite K-pop star in the show. From their enthusiasm, and the fervent energy of the social media campaign once we announced our closing, I have really come to believe we missed our opportunity to tap into the immense spending power of so many who were hungry to see something so different on Broadway. We could have and should have reached so many more of them. I hope that future shows can learn from what happened to us. I hope that how theatre is funded, marketed, and sold can catch up with the innovations of the stories being told.”

A day before the news of the closing broke, producers announced that Sony Masterworks Broadway will release a cast album of the show on Feb. 24, 2023, with record producer Harvey Mason Jr. (one half of the production duo The Underdogs), a veteran hitmaker who has been very prominent in the K-pop scene, at the helm alongside music director Sujin Kim-Ramsey. The show’s blend of power ballads, reggaetón, glow-in-the-dark EDM, nu-disco, progressive house, techno, hip-hop, trap, and Korean wave dance-pop should make it the most anticipated cast album of the season. It will undoubtedly introduce the show to many more folks who could see it during its short run. And who knows? It could even give KPOP a chance at a second life or a future remount, given its massive appeal to young audiences and K-pop fans. If that does happen, future producers will hopefully have learned that the show needs something more than the usual marketing approach and word-of-mouth.

For now, its creators are celebrating the moment while it lasts.

“There is something still inherently radical about this cast, these bodies, inhabiting this story, on this stage, especially out of an unbelievably difficult set of years for everyone and for everyone in very different ways,” said director Teddy Bergman from his Brooklyn apartment as he prepared for an emergency rehearsal. “There’s a tremendous amount of joy on that stage, and I think experiences of collective joy and stories of redemption and hard-won strength and release are necessary public rituals at this moment in time.”

In a new essay for Playbill, Helen Park shares a story about her own young son that demonstrates one way the show is a hit, no matter its box-office numbers.

“He told me he wanted to be in KPOP when he grows up, ‘if it still exists,’” she writes. “He might be too young to realize the significance and the rarity of this, but he saw himself represented onstage, loud and proud, flawed and complicated. He saw himself represented as fully human, on the Great White Way. That’s the moment I felt like I must have done something right.

“I see audiences like my son every night, young and old. I see how their eyes light up as they see themselves represented in the form of superstars. Perhaps for some of them, they’re superheroes.”

Marcus Scott is a New York-based playwright, musical writer, and journalist. He’s written for Architectural Digest, Time Out New York, The Brooklyn Rail, Elle, Essence, Out, and Playbill, among other publications.

The article originally misstated the timing and source of quotes from Seonjae Kim. It failed to mention that a lead getting COVID was a factor in the postponement of opening night, and it also stated incorrectly that the entire cast is making their Broadway debut.

[willstafford]

Magic with Knobs On

Magic with Knobs On

BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTICKS The Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Thursday 11th November, 2021 Fifty years after its release, the Disney film gets a stage adaptation, and I approach it curious to see how certain key scenes will be performed (the underwater scene, the football match, the flying bed…)  From the off, you can see we are in safe and creative hands.  The show opens with an extended…

[ellayurman]

Go watch this fun video woohoo! 

[unlimited-rice-puddin]

Bedknobs and Broomsticks Review: It’s Time to Start Believing

Bedknobs and Broomsticks Review: It’s Time to Start Believing

Oft-overlooked Disney classic, Bedknobs and Broomsticks dazzles and delights in its World Premiere World Tour (more…)

[melancholicmer]

very platonic friendship definitely nothing more than that. the lyric is "the end of the line" by Neil Bartram.

I didn't know what to put for the last drawing so I just drew Voryn and Nerevar watching the sky (very platonic) and I used this drawing as a background for my account because why not

[thrudreamland]

a cool and good musical!!

(im reposting this because it needs more attn!!)

HEY GUYS so i love this musical called the theory of relativity by neil bartram and brian hill!! it's kinda new and it's just?? amazing?? i don't even know what the plot is because it's like five different plots intertwined but like i think the whole underlying moral is that having someone to rely on, whether romantically or platonically, is extremely important and there's this whole "i am nothing without you" theme that's really nice and heartwarming and i just?? i wish more people would listen to it so ahem

here it is on spotify

here's a performance of it (warning i haven't watched it so the quality may be bad or not who knows)

spread this around please!!! i have an immense love for this musical and i've seen absolutely no one talking about it so i'd really like others to get to know about it!

[38-planes]

How the couple behind Come From Away created a Canadian musical hit

The Globe and Mail, 17 February 2017

Come from Away creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff struggled as artists, found each other as life and business partners and became the dynamic duo of the Canadian musical

For Valentine’s Day week, here’s a love story, times two.

It’s about how a Prairie dreamer with a guitar and a Toronto realist who always had a backup plan got together as romantic partners – and then, a decade later, saved their relationship and discovered a unique voice that would take them to Broadway by getting together again, as artistic partners.

Come from Away’s creators David Hein and Irene Sankoff, whose Newfoundland-set hit about the 38 planeloads of people stranded in Gander after 9/11 opens in previews on 45th Street on Saturday, told it one morning before departing for New York, in the living room of the two-storey Toronto home they bought in 2006 with the help of their parents, day jobs and a 35-year mortgage no longer offered by banks.

A decade later, they have a three-year-old named Molly, are working as artists full-time – and, financially, the picture looks a heck of a lot different. Best-case scenario, if Come from Away sells out in Manhattan the way it did in Seattle and Toronto, as sole authors of the work, they could pull in $27,000 (U.S.) a week – more every seven days than the average Canadian author or writer earns in a year.

That’s my estimate based on industry standards – but money is the one topic these two children of divorce who both, at times, lived in humble circumstances with their single mothers are sheepish about. “We grew up without a lot of money, so the whole thing makes me really nervous,” Sankoff says.

Hein further cites the statistic that only one in five shows on Broadway makes a profit. “Literally, we’re the fifth show out of five to go to Broadway from Canada – and one of them [2006’s The Drowsy Chaperone] has already made it!”

Falling in love

Their first love story is beautifully conventional: Hein, born in Regina, and Sankoff, from the Toronto suburb of North York, met on the first day of frosh week at York University in the 1990s. “Irene thinks it was a welcome barbecue; I think it was at a welcome pancake breakcast,” Hein says.

“Because it was outside, right?”

“You can eat pancakes outside.”

The aspiring songwriter and aspiring actress both loved theatre – but, musically, were divided. Hein, as a kid, through visits to the Winnipeg Folk Festival with his mother, had developed a taste for bands such as Blue Rodeo and Great Big Sea (a similar sound pervades Come from Away’s score), while Sankoff was a musical-theatre nut who danced all her life and bonded with her mother over old movie musicals. “My mom would come back after working to 11 or whatever on Christmas Eve and we would start watching Top Hat … or those old Gene Kelly musicals,” she recalls. “I was obsessed.”

But Sankoff was also an academic overachiever feeling pressure from the science-focused side of her family – and, while she acted extracurricularly at York, she graduated with a double major in psychology and creative writing.

The young couple’s first major fight was, as only a young couple’s could be, about whether theatre could change the world. They went at it until the sun came up – the dreamer trying to convince the realist.

Hein didn’t win the argument – but, on the verge of applying to do a master’s in speech and language pathology, Sankoff did decide to at least give acting a try professionally.

New York

So, in 1999, Sankoff and Hein moved to New York. Sankoff began studying at the Actors Studio – as seen on TV – and Hein, who has dual citizenship, began work as “assistant everything” at a music studio where The Muppets recorded, borrowing the equipment to record his own songs at night.

The pair lived in a residence called International House in Upper Manhattan along with grad students from 110 countries – and that’s where they were when, on Sept. 11, 2001, planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center. That night, windows shut to keep the smell of smoke out, scared students from around the world gathered around a piano in the residence for an impromptu concert – a moving experience Sankoff and Hein would later draw on for Come from Away.

But 9/11 had a more immediate impact on them. A month later, Hein woke up and said, “Hey, why don’t we get married?” They were already engaged – but on Oct. 12, 2001, they headed down to City Hall and secretly eloped.

Playbills from Hein and Sankoff’s New York years still hang on the kitchen wall of the house they share with their daughter and two cats, one named Elphaba (after the Wicked witch) and the other Gambo (after the Newfoundland town).

But it was not always a dream: Savings dwindled, the studio Hein was working at shut down, and Sankoff – who had an agent and was getting gigs – separated a shoulder in a dance class.

Uninsured, she took a trip to Toronto to see a doctor – and it turned into a move back home.

The second love story

Back in Canada, Hein and Sankoff had to build an artistic community from scratch. She landed a role in The Mousetrap; he released an album called North of Nowhere. And so it went for years – pursuing art at night and paying bills through tutoring or graphic design. Soon, they were married homeowners, but they barely got to see each other and grew lonely, especially when Hein was off on tour. Was this living the dream?

And this – in 2009 – is where the second love story begins.

Hein had written a song called My Mother’s Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding – based on his own experience as the son of a woman who came out later in life and remarried – that was popular on tour. More than most of his work, it was influenced by the musical theatre that Sankoff had introduced him to over the course of their relationship. What if, he wondered, they could expand it into an actual musical – and, at the very least, spend some time together?

Marrying their skills, Hein and Sankoff began trying to turn their family’s story into a fictional musical – at first, a conventional “book musical” where an invisible fourth wall descends in front of the audience and scenes and songs alternate to tell a story.

But an epiphany Sankoff had on Valentine’s Day led the pair to a different writing style – one they later refined with Come from Away.

At the gym that day, Sankoff was talking with an enthusiastic friend about Wiccan Wedding – and heard her say, “The best thing about this is that it’s based on a true story.” A light bulb went on.

“I came home to David and said, ‘We’ve got to throw it out. Let’s tell the real story.’”

The new version the couple started working on during an unorthodox Valentine’s date would eventually feature Hein sitting on a stool in his Glass Tiger shirt, singing songs about his mother’s coming out, how he introduced his two moms to Irene at a Hooters and the history of same-sex marriage in Canada, using a troupe of actors that included his wife to tell the stories.

The sweet and direct show became a hit at the Toronto Fringe Festival that summer, then was picked up by producer David Mirvish to play at the city’s 700-seat Panasonic Theatre he had just purchased – and Sankoff and Hein’s career as commercial musical-theatre creators was launched.

When the idea to write a show about what happened in and around Gander, Nfld., in 2001 was proposed to them shortly thereafter by Michael Rubinoff at Sheridan College, it could not have been a more ideal project for them.

They had seen how strangers from around the world bonded, with music, on Sept. 11, and seen how music played a role in bringing them together – and they had found the right aesthetic for such a story, having learned that a musical could be a true story set in our times, told with plenty of direct address, and that authenticity was as important to winning over an audience as craft in lyrics and lines.

Armed with a $12,000 grant from the Canada Council, they headed to Gander for Sept. 11, 2011, to interview locals and “come from aways” returning to commemorate the 10th anniversary.

Hein and Sankoff’s subsequent five-year journey – buzz-creating workshops on both sides of the border, a bidding war by commercial producers at a showcase in New York, record-breaking runs in San Diego, Seattle, Washington and Toronto – has been told in these pages before.

Now, the last chapter is about to be written as final adjustments are made in a preview period ahead of a March 12 opening.

As the statistics show, Come from Away may not make them rich. Canadians who have had what are referred to as “flops” in the harsh language of Broadway – such as Cliff Jones, whose Rockabye Hamlet closed in a week in 1976; and Neil Bartram and Brian Hill, whose The Story of My Life did the same in 2009 – have advised the couple to just enjoy the ride.

In any case, the two have a bigger goal beyond making money, Hein says, “Especially now, it feels important to talk about welcoming refugees off planes, strangers into our communities.”

Yes – he’s finally won the argument about whether theatre can change the world.

Sankoff came around after meeting senior citizens who changed their minds on same-sex marriage after seeing Wiccan Wedding, and receiving letters from Come from Away audience members about how it’s inspired them to be better people.

“I still have my moments where I’m like, ‘It’s a drop in the bucket,’” Sankoff says. “But at least it’s a drop.”

[ilovetheater-nl]

Theory of Relativity BST De Derde Akte - FotoReportage

Theory of Relativity BST De Derde Akte – FotoReportage

De ‘Theory of Relativity’ is een musical van de hand van Neil Bartram (met muziek van Brian Hill). De musical doet onderzoek naar het idee dat alle mensen nauw met elkaar verbonden zijn, constateert dat onze persoonlijke reizen ingrijpende gevolgen kunnen hebben voor degenen met wie we in contact komen en leert ons om van ons vreemde intieme partners te maken. Door middel van liedjes en monologen…

[lewishamledger]

History of the heath

On the Lewisham and Greenwich border sits one of London's best-loved green spaces. From rogues to royals to revolutionaries, our writer delves into its intriguing past

WORDS BY COLIN RICHARDSON; PHOTO BY MARTIN DEUTSCH

This is Blackheath. What do you see? Grass, undoubtedly. The heath is 275 acres in extent; so there’s a lot of grass. You might also spot outbursts of gorse here and there, and some decorative ponds. Roads and paths criss-cross the place, but there’s only one major highway, the Dover Road, which sweeps up Blackheath Hill, thunders along the route of an ancient trackway and disappears over Shooter’s Hill.

Some houses can be seen at the margins, but on the heath proper there are few human encroachments: just the church, the army drill hall and the small sunken settlement, complete with primary school, which nestles in an old sandpit. At first glance, Blackheath is little more than a flat, open plain with a heart of grass. But there’s so much more to it than that.

I grew up on the edge of Blackheath. I love it now as I loved it then. It was my childhood playground. I fished for minnows and sticklebacks in Whitefield Pond. I hurled myself and my bicycle on a wild ride down the steep slopes of the long-abandoned gravel quarry that we locals called The Dip. Somehow, along the way, I learned all sorts of stories about the place: tales of armed rebellions, royal revels, highway robberies and mass graves. And almost all of it is true.

Blackheath occupies a commanding position, close to and high above the city. It is an excellent place to gather and plan an assault on the metropolis below. Wat Tyler’s Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, Jack Cade’s Kentish rebellion of 1450 and the Cornish rebellion of 1497 all made their last stand here, before being cruelly cut down by the king’s men.

At the same time, Blackheath has afforded monarchs and their representatives an ideal location for welcoming visiting dignitaries and showing off. In 1540, King Henry VIII held his first official meeting with Anne of Cleves, his soon-to-be fourth wife, on the heath, before leading her downhill, with great pomp and ceremony, to Greenwich Palace. Downhill was also the way their relationship went not long afterwards.

It wasn’t until the 19th century, and particularly with the arrival of the railways in 1848, that the development of Blackheath as a desirable place to live really began in earnest. Before then, there were several grand houses hereabouts, but little other permanent habitation.

The heath could be a bleak and forbidding place and, at night, downright dangerous. Highwaymen (and some highwaywomen) lurked in every shadow. The terror they inspired is graphically evoked by Charles Dickens in the early pages of A Tale of Two Cities, where a mail coach toils up Shooter’s Hill in the dark, pursued by an unseen horseman.

So much of what I now know about Blackheath is down to one man – the heath’s preeminent historian and president of the Blackheath Society, Neil Rhind. Thanks to the books he has written, the walks he has led and the talks he has given, Neil has helped to keep the history of the heath alive.

Neil’s memory is prodigious. Ask him anything about Blackheath and he is sure to know the answer. I’ve always wondered, for example, whether the valley in which Blackheath Village sits is natural or manmade – another of the former quarries and gravel pits that scar the face of the heath. Did a river ever run through it? Oh, yes, says Neil; the Upper Kid Brook. But when the railways came, it was diverted underground.

“It’s still there, in a humble brick pipe,” he says. “I’ve seen it. In the 1970s, they had to dig up the station yard, and they opened up the brick pipe, the conduit which took the water of the Kid Brook. It was jolly nice, it was chugging along. Beautiful brickwork too.”

The Blackheath Society aims to “preserve and improve” Blackheath and its amenities. It holds an extensive historical archive, which includes tens of thousands of documents and images.

It was the driving force behind the installation of seven storyboards at points of interest across the heath. But perhaps the bulk of its work concerns the monitoring of planning applications submitted to the two councils that administer Blackheath: Lewisham and Greenwich.

“We try to monitor them all,” says John Bartram, the society’s publicity and publications officer, “but there are hundreds. The reason for doing this is not because we like to interfere; it’s to try and make sure from the point of view of residents and local people that it stays a nice area to live in.”

The society’s greatest battle to date commenced in 1962, when plans to drive a six-lane highway through Blackheath Village were announced by the London County Council. An early and influential opponent of the scheme was the future prime minister and sometime local resident, James Callaghan, then a backbench Labour MP. With his support, the Blackheath Society eventually saw off the plan.

One of the most hotly contested facts about Blackheath is how it got its name. Perhaps the best-known theory is that Blackheath is so-called because beneath its soil lie countless corpses, the bodily remains of those poor souls who perished during the Black Death.

“Not so,” says Neil Rhind. “There’s no evidence of plague pits or anything like that. Blackheath already had its name in the 11th century. The Black Death was in 1349, much later than when we have recorded evidence of the name.”

That also puts paid to another pet theory, that the name derives from infamous deeds of the aforementioned highwaymen. Disappointingly, it seems they’re not even responsible for the naming of Shooter’s Hill.

So where did Blackheath acquire its name? “The general view,” says Neil, “is that it looked black when it had been rained on.” That may be correct – though we’ll probably never know for sure – but it doesn’t seem quite right to me. The heath’s soil is grey rather than black, even when it’s wet. A soggy heath is still a green heath.

I prefer the more romantic explanation propounded by some, which Neil thinks is “stretching it a bit” – that is to say, wrong. Here goes anyway. There is an old Anglo-Saxon word, “blæc”, meaning “shining”. And, the story goes, when the gorse is in bloom, with a million bright yellow flowers lighting the place up, the heath appears to shine.

Anyhow, do visit the Blackheath Society website and trawl its archive. Find out what it’s up to now and join in. You won’t regret it. And you’ll learn so much that you might even come to love Blackheath as much as I do.

 The Blackheath Society’s website is at blackheath.org. View the archive via blackheatharchive.org

[iverykittenbouquetfan-blog]

Strictly Come Dancing pro Neil Jones sends fans wild as he hints THIS show couple are already engaged

Strictly Come Dancing pro Neil Jones sends fans wild as he hints THIS show couple are already engaged

Home Latest Celebrity News

Strictly Come Dancing pro Neil Jones sends fans wild as he hints THIS show couple are already engaged

Naomi Bartram

9:20 am – 14/03/19

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Do we hear wedding bells?

TAGS: Dianne SugwellJoe SuggNeil Jones

Strictly Come Dancing fans have gone wild after professional dancer Neil Jones hinted Joe Sugg and Dianne Buswellare…

[theatrebubble]

Pinocchio at the Ambassadors Theatre

Pinocchio at the Ambassadors Theatre

A heartwarming youth theatre production of Neil Bartram’s fantastic musical Pinocchio begins its summer run in the West End. The show is produced by The British Theatre Academy who provide a large cast of children and young people ranging from age six to late teens. Heading up the young team are professionals Martin Neely, playing a lovable Geppetto and Lizzie Rees as the narrator/blue fairy.

Th…

[londontheatre]

Following their triumphant sold-out gala fundraising concert of The Color Purple last Sunday featuring major stars from shows including Dreamgirls (★★★★★ The Stage, ★★★★★ Britishtheatre.com, ★★★★★ LondonTheatre1.com) the British Theatre Academy today announces a double bill of musicals this summer at London’s Ambassadors Theatre.

The Adventures of Pinocchio, with Music and Lyrics by Neil Bartram, Book by Brian Hill, directed by Bronagh Langan (Promises Promises, Southwark Playhouse) will run from Friday July 28 – Thursday 31 August.

13 The Musical, with Music and Lyrics by Tony Award-winning Jason Robert Brown, (Parade, The Last Five Years, Bridges of Madison County) and Book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn, directed and choreographed by Ewan Jones, will play Wednesday 16 August – Wednesday 23 August. 13 The Musical is a youth production presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International (Europe).

This season follows the success of previous BTA summer shows, The Secret Garden at the Ambassadors Theatre in 2016 and Annie Jr, which smashed box office records at the Arts Theatre in 2015. Those shows gave over 500 youngsters the chance to act for the first time in the West End.

Producer Matthew Chandler of the BTA said: “The Color Purple in Concert at Cadogan Hall on Sunday was an unforgettable night for the audience and for our youngsters getting to perform alongside stars from the West End and Broadway. It is has been an incredible year for the BTA and to date all our productions and concerts have given 1,500 children the chance to perform on the West End stage. For our summer season, more than 2,000 young people auditioned for The Adventures of Pinocchio and over 1,000 teenagers for 13 The Musical. In total we have 17 teams of actors performing The Adventures of Pinocchio and 3 teams performing 13 The Musical.This is a fantastic opportunity for all the youngsters involved.”

The Adventures of Pinocchio Written by the Broadway and Disney writing duo Neil Bartram and Brian Hill (The Story of My Life, Bedknobs and Broomsticks), this family musical is based on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale of a wooden puppet longing to be a real boy. Carved out of wood by the lonely toymaker Geppetto, Pinocchio tumbles from one disastrous situation to another in search of adventure—only to discover that, in the end, all he really needs is an unselfish heart and the love of his father. Based on Carlo Collodi’s classic tale, this family musical illuminates the bond between parents and children in a magical performance that is sure to enchant audiences of all ages!

Creative team: Director Bronagh Langan For tick, tick… BOOM! (currently at the Park Theatre) and Promises Promises (Southwark Playhouse), Bronagh was nominated Best Director in the Off West End Awards. Her other credits include The Rise and Fall of Little Voice (Chipping Norton Theatre and Greenwich Theatre), Madness Of Sweeney (Belfast Lyric), James And The Giant Peach (International Tour), Marina Carr’s Portia Coughlan (Old Red Lion Theatre), Howard Goodall’s Girlfriends (Union Theatre) Rags In Concert (Lyric Theatre) and the British premiere of The Stationmaster (From Page To Stage).

Musical Supervisor James Taylor His recent shows include DISASTER! The Musical – UK premiere (Charing Cross Theatre), Jest End (Waterloo East) and Assistant MD on Sweeney Todd (“Harringtons Pie Shop” and Shaftesbury Avenue)).

13 The Musical An original musical with music and lyrics by Tony Award-winning composer, Jason Robert Brown, (Parade, The Last Five Years, Bridges of Madison County) and book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn, it premiered on Broadway in 2008 and is the only Broadway musical ever with a cast and band entirely made of teenagers.

13 The Musical is an hilarious, coming-of-age musical about discovering that “cool” is sometimes where we least expect it. Geek. Poser. Jock. Beauty Queen. Wannabe. These are the labels that can last a lifetime. With an unforgettable rock score, 13 The Musical is a musical about fitting in – and standing out! Evan Goldman is plucked from his fast-paced, preteen New York City life and plopped into a sleepy Indiana town following his parents divorce. Surrounded by an array of simpleminded middle school students, he needs to establish his place in the popularity pecking order. Can he situate himself on a comfortable link of the food chain… or will he dangle at the end with the outcasts?!

Composed of a precocious cast, no character in 13 is older than the show’s title.The cast is comprised entirely of teenagers, but the stories that come to life here are ageless, the emotions they explore timeless, the laughter and the memories they provide priceless.

The British Theatre Academy is a unique performing arts programme that has inspired and nurtured the talent of thousands of young performers over the past 30 years! We believe that children should be trained as professionals by professionals. Our team maintains an established link with casting directors, music producers, and talent agents across the world. We are passionate about releasing the individual skill and flair of each student in all aspects of their chosen field. Our experienced creative team provide exceptional training and are dedicated in preparing and inspiring our students at the highest level. Last Summer the BTA brought The Secret Garden and Godspell into the West End where over 500 outstanding cast members wowed the audiences all summer long and performed alongside musical theatre stars Kerry Ellis, Ramin Karimlooo and George Maguire.

Creative team: Director and Choreographer Ewan Jones

LISTINGS INFO THE ADVENTURES OF PINOCCHIO Ambassadors Theatre West Street LONDON WC2H 9ND http://ift.tt/1nX2oDP Wednesday 28 July – Wednesday 30 August Running time: 1 hour 15 mins (no intermission) Presented by arrangement with R & H Theatricals Europe

LISTINGS INFO 13 THE MUSICAL Ambassadors Theatre West Street LONDON WC2H 9ND

Box Office: 020 7395 5405 http://ift.tt/1nX2oDP Wednesday 16 August Wednesday – 23 August Running time: 1 hour 45 mins (no intermission)

http://ift.tt/2rYgex1 LondonTheatre1.com

[cahwyguy]

A little bit late -- been a busy week. Sunday night, we popped over to Woodland Hills and the Charles Stewart Howard Playhouse at Woodland Hills​ to see the Brian Hill / Neil Bartram music "The Theory of Relativity". It was a wonderful production -- I just love their music (and I have ever since The Story of My Life). Well worth seeing -- you have one more weekend.